Explorers Room with Flash Strap:
Playlist
from April 21, 2016

This is where all of culture and all of time are collapsed into one seductive portal and viewed through the panoramic lens of the exotic. Come and embark on an armchair-travel virtual-voyage to the heart of timeless darkness and beyond; embrace the numinous monolith of the exotic immensity. Let us find that place where hybridization meets its destiny as pure fantasy. Let us become observers observing those others who are ourselves. You wear your mask and I'll wear mine.

Thu. 4/21/16 7:11pm
Flash Strap:
I just found these, and some others, two days ago. at a thrift shop that draws from a community which, y'know, is generally unlikely to have these kinds of records around. so it felt extra special

Thu. 4/21/16 7:11pm
Little Danny:
Good, man! Hoping that next Thursday's gonna inaugurate some shit for the one-two radio punch.

Thu. 4/21/16 7:14pm
Flash Strap:
that's great news, but it tears me up that i won't be there for that first one-two! I'm off the air for the next two weeks, alas

Thu. 4/21/16 7:24pm
Little Danny:
I remember when I first D/L'd the Pedro Santos from yer blog. Magic.

Thu. 4/21/16 7:29pm
Flash Strap:
it's sooooo good. i wish i had a better copy, mine sounds sort of crummy. relatively crummy for something so good i mean

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 7:30pm
Stepchild:
Flash I've got to keep a discogs window open while I listen to your show. I've just got to! And it's saying the catalog number following the Bali 7", LD 340, is also a 7" and it dates it to 1957, FWIW.

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 7:41pm
Stepchild:
Wikipedia en Francois knows a bit about the BAM label some of which hasn't made its way to discogs... fr.wikipedia.org...

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 7:42pm
hyde:
the French are good about their libraries and film archives.

Thu. 4/21/16 7:48pm
Flash Strap:
This record has some wild stuff. I like how it's recorded, lots of ambient noises

Thu. 4/21/16 7:53pm
ndbob:
Incredible that you found these at a thrift shop Evan

Thu. 4/21/16 7:55pm
Flash Strap:
I've found some really unbelievable things in thrift shops–some funk and jazz LPs that I still can't believe I paid less than 50 bucks for, let alone 50 cents–but these are certainly among the most unlikely, literally exotic in every way, thrift shop finds of my life

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 8:23pm
hyde:
i went through a big doo wop phase a long time ago. i should dust off some of those records. Flamingo Serenade comes out a lot (i mean, how could it not? that record is a mind blower), but so many I haven't played in years....

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 8:24pm
melinda:
I heard 'Tragedy' by the Fleetwoods on Bob Brainen's show a while back and bought the song but didn't explore further, so it's nice to hear more of them tonight.

Thu. 4/21/16 8:25pm
Flash Strap:
I'll play some more of theirs another night, I'm still sort of working my way through. I really love so much of it... and I think i'm due for another doowop phase myself

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:12pm
melinda:
One time I was playing the Carpenters at work and a customer expressed sympathy, thinking I had been forced to play them. I let them know it was my choice and they felt bad but I thought it was funny.

Thu. 4/21/16 9:12pm
coelacanth:
i respect the members of green day much more than i like their music.

Whole LP's incredible if you've never heard it, tho i'm sure you have by now

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:15pm
hyde:
@Melinda that's hilarious. i'm with ndb on this one--i hated the Carpenters for a long time,then got on board. when i was in a bad lounge band we used to cover "Close To You" and after awhile i really started to dig it.

Thu. 4/21/16 9:16pm
ndbob:
@melinda some of it was what I associated them with - kids who voted for Nixon, etc - though looking back that seems really silly

Thu. 4/21/16 9:16pm
Flash Strap:
she really is tremendous at times, and they did some pretty well-composed songs

Thu. 4/21/16 9:16pm
David in Cleveland:
Just stepped out for a minute.. Sirius XM playing a Prince
tribute right now on their '80s channel.. people calling in
with stories..

Thu. 4/21/16 9:17pm
Flash Strap:
hard to compete with a Prince tribute on a night like this

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:20pm
hyde:
yeah. i love that Horace Andy Skylarking record you posted. i had never heard it before.

Thu. 4/21/16 9:20pm
Flash Strap:
I think that this is basically a perfect song, and I marvel at it

Thu. 4/21/16 9:20pm
coelacanth:
i once had a formal complaint brought against me for playing too much reggae!

Thu. 4/21/16 9:20pm
David in Cleveland:
Under appreciated. Sleepy is still doing stuff in the studio.
I've been his fan since 1980.. his was my first reggae record

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:21pm
melinda:
I love playing vintage smooth tunes in the store where I work. It's generally not what people expect to hear, yet it doesn't cross over into 'inappropriate for a retail environment', which much of my taste could. It's hard to know and I tend to push the boundaries. I once got a positive customer response to the Langley Schools Music Project, so I played it again, only to have another customer get mean and contemptuous and leave the store.

Thu. 4/21/16 9:27pm
ndbob:
@Evan it was on the Incorrect Music Show - the second FMU show I ever listened to after Charlie

Thu. 4/21/16 9:27pm
coelacanth:
kinda funny then. definitely funny now!
...i did try to be democratic. i'd wait after each tape and no one ever played anything, so i chose again. it wasn't always reggae, but i guess all that world music shit sounded the same to them!

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:30pm
melinda:
I learned of Langley Schools long before I started listening to WFMU, and when I started listening to more programs here and learned that Irwin was the producer it made me even more excited about WFMU.

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:33pm
melinda:
The couple who liked the Langley Schools at first thought there was a chorus of children practicing in the next room when they heard it. Which tickled me.

Thu. 4/21/16 9:34pm
coelacanth:
some of the earliest svengali moves wfmu made with me were negativland. (the earliest was balanese gamelan music in 1977)
...now, after 2 members last year, another has moved on. (2 days ago, on his birthday.)

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:36pm
hyde:
@c right, negativland. that was the other guy who checked out today. i saw those guys play live once, it was wild.

Thu. 4/21/16 9:37pm
coelacanth:
that was only the second time i've heard Nora Dean. the other song is "mojo girl". good to hear the rare rootsy reggae with a female vocal.

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:43pm
hyde:
it was great. they did this thing with a toaster--they came out, put two slices of bread in it, popped it down and just left it while they played. it created more smoke than any dry ice show i've ever seen in my life, just totally filled the club.

Thu. 4/21/16 9:51pm
Revolution Rabbit Nov63:
Well - talk of FreeForm Radio - some college radio used to be pretty out there before the 'Republican Revolution' took the funds away for everything & the universe had to be monetized & therefore mainstreamed...much as HipHop used to be more adventurous before Sampling rights laws came down hard...

♥
Thu. 4/21/16 9:53pm
hyde:
@c you know the Internet Archive has the full Over the Edge Radio archive, yes?

Thu. 4/21/16 9:53pm
David in Cleveland:
After "Explorer's Room" I recommend
"Music of Africa" on KBCS Seattle, 10pm-midnight

Thu. 4/21/16 9:54pm
coelacanth:
hyde...whut?!!
- where have i been all my life?

Thu. 4/21/16 9:55pm
Revolution Rabbit Nov63:
'Do or DIY with People Like Us' is a related species to those:
wfmu.org/playlists/PL